2 6o BACKBONED ANIMALS. 



bles our common turkey, though smaller, being only two 

 and a half feet long. It is found in New South Wales, and 

 is remarkable for its method of hatching its eggs. 



The ocellated leipoa {Leipoa ocellata) of western Aus- 

 tralia forms a mound of fine iron-stone gravel, mixed with 

 vegetable matter, forty-five feet in circumference and near- 

 ly five feet high, the heat developed in the interior being 



FIG. 295. Brush-turkeys and their egg-mounds. 



pyramidal form four feet in height, the leaves being grasped in the 

 claws and hurled backward, as shown in Fig. 295. The mass soon fer- 

 ments, producing heat, and in it the white eggs are buried, fifteen 

 inches deep, in a circle, the large end upward, and from nine to twelve 

 inches apart, an opening being left in the center to govern the tem- 

 perature of the mound, the birds also exposing the eggs on warm days. 

 The young are hatched in thirty days, remaining in the mound twelve 

 hours after being hatched. On the second night they return to the 

 mound, and are partly covered by the male, the next day being able to 

 fly and remain with the parents. 



